My D20 Rant

[Q1000]

The problem with the current crop of D20 product is that it is not geared towards the GM who wishes to design his own world setting.
There is either to many campaign settings or way to many player books and character options.
We need more material geared towards the GM who wishes to construct his own game world.
Currently there are no supplements that look at world building, economics, village/caste construction, city construction, npcs etc.
D20 seems geared tomuch toward the construction of scenarios and miny campaigns versus the long term campaign that many of us had participated in at the start.
Take a look at the D&D basic set through Immortal set as a guideline. here the character starts out as a dungeon basher and works his way up to a ruler of a small provence up again to being a God..
I love the game but feel there is a need for campaign development material.

Thank You,
Q1000

 

[Troll Lord]

Q1000,

Hey dude, this is something we've been wrestling with at TLG and through the good works of Gary Gygax we've got a solution coming your way.

Starting in March the Canting Crew will kick off a series of book by Gary that explore world building. The Canting Crew specifically addresses the underclass of an urban environment. It will help give bredth (is that the right word) and meaning to your thieves guilds, dens of ill repute and the seedier side of the 'other guys.' It comes complete with instructions on how to build a model city (through the example of Ludnum), will include maps, tables and explanatory text, with guild structures etc; as well as, an entire Cant with pictograms, hand signals, and jargon. It will have some new classes, equipment lists, spells and a few magic items for your pleasure as well.

The second book in the series, The World Builders Guide, includes lists, charts and tables that will help you flesh out your campaign world (due out this summer).

check us out at www.trolllord.com

Thanks and have a great day,
Steve

 

[Mindcrime]

I love Gary's work, so this isn't a flame. I just wanted to say that this quote doesn't surprise me in the least:

The second book in the series, The World Builders Guide, includes lists, charts and tables that will help you flesh out your campaign world (due out this summer).

Tables and charts as a selling point Sheesh.

Chris

 

[Q1000]

Cool, good to see he is still in the game. Im looking foreward to these types of products in the future.

 

[CWD]

I love Gary's work, so this isn't a flame. I just wanted to say that this quote doesn't surprise me in the least:

Tables and charts as a selling point Sheesh.

Chris

No kidding, maybe it should come with a CD and a copy of Tablesmith with all the charts already programmed in!

 

[7thlvlDM]

The problem with the current crop of D20 product is that it is not geared towards the GM who wishes to design his own world setting.
There is either to many campaign settings or way to many player books and character options.
We need more material geared towards the GM who wishes to construct his own game world.
Currently there are no supplements that look at world building, economics, village/caste construction, city construction, npcs etc.
D20 seems geared tomuch toward the construction of scenarios and miny campaigns versus the long term campaign that many of us had participated in at the start.
Take a look at the D&D basic set through Immortal set as a guideline. here the character starts out as a dungeon basher and works his way up to a ruler of a small provence up again to being a God..
I love the game but feel there is a need for campaign development material.

Thank You,
Q1000

Personally, I think supplements like Atlas Game's Touched by the Gods (with its secret societies) and the Green Ronin monster books (with lots of plot hooks) are better campaign design aids than anything that gives general advice on economy systems, or countless tables of village population size and weather information.

I agree though that there are way too many campaign settings out there. The problem with them is that they're mutually exclusive. If I want to run a ghost story campaign, I can dig out my 2E Ravenloft things, pick up The Last Dance, and see what Mystic Eye games has to offer. If I want fantasy+technology, I can put the Forge and Watchmakers from Touched by the Gods together with Necromancer's Durgam's Folly, and maybe some things out of Privateer's Witchfire Trilogy. Parallel worlds? Mix the Mirror Plane from Manual of the Planes with The Ebon Mirror from Atlas, and a touch of Madness in Freeport (change the city name). But if I buy a campaign world, I can't use it simultaneously with another company's world. They don't cross-pollenate so well. Mega adventures (e.g., Necropolis, when it comes out) don't seem as bad because they're localized and you can at least interleave other adventures with it.

Now a book of campaign ideas, I would buy.

-7th
(Trying to find a local place that carries Arcana: Societies of Magic...)

 

[Mystic Eye]

I can dig out my 2E Ravenloft things, pick up The Last Dance, and see what Mystic Eye games has to offer.

Hey, thanks for the honorable mention 7thlevelDM.

We need more material geared towards the GM who wishes to construct his own game world.

Actually, everything we have done to date is done with the intention that it can be plugged in to another campaign without much effort. All of them are DM tools if count adventures as a DM resource and while they have a dark theme they can be used in any other setting as well.
Even our upcoming world book is done in such a way that it is modular and can be taken apart so that the components can fit in any 3e game and be used in a DMs campaign world instead of ours if he or she so chooses.
We are also starting a couple more lines apart from our current one that are even more "campaign neutral" and for the DM.
The Foul Locales are detailed, plug-in locations that are fully detailed. We have added some adventure ideas but the real use of the book is that DM can pick it up when they need a new, uexpected location and find it ready to go.
The first one is Urban based and the next one will be rural based and handled the same way. Fleshed out entirely but not set up as adventures, just detailed places.
These are more granular then a book on building keeps or how to make a good village so may not apply to the original method but they are entirely campaign neutral and don't attept to set up an adventure at all.

Also, I think there are some books out there that have been great, non-campaign specific source books that are for the DM to add to his or her campaign. Touched by the Gods was mentioned, That book is great. There are several fantastic creature collections that easily tranfer to any campaign world (ours included) and a DM can always use more creautures. Mongoose's stuff has all been campaign neutral to date and at least parts of each of those books should work in any game for a GM. There is Traps & Treachery and Mithic Races from FFG, both are good DM resources that are meant to make things easier and helpful to a DM as well as players.
I know there are many more I have not mentioned.

Currently there are no supplements that look at world building, economics, village/caste construction, city construction, npcs etc.

Iagree with this but the flood is coming. I know there is a castle building book coming ( I think by WOTC) there is 1,000 faces which is a book full of detailed NPCs buy Citizen games coming, the world builders guide mentioned in this thread plus tons more. As adventure sales slow down you will see lots more of this type of material come out.

 

[Suzerain]

***

 

[DPGTony]

Re: "Made for use right in your home campaign!"

Right now, the way we're doing it at DPG is to assume that any GM worth his salt will have the imagination and creativity to easily fit our adventures to their needs. We do however include suggestions and ideas to help them do just that. Frankly, I can't think of anything I've ever purchased for RPGs that I could not make fit if I really wanted to or at least steal some good crunchies from.

As Doug (Mystic Eye) said being able to plug things in is important. Whether that means the entire adventure, some of the plot hooks, only a few of the NPCs, or whatever else the GM finds useful is all good.

Our philosophy is to not only provide a service whereby we not only save the GM some work and give them some good ideas, but tell a good story along the way.

I hope that made sense. I'm a little rummy right now from staying up late the night before getting stuff out to play testers.

 

[Q1000]

Yes there is wonderful product out there, excellent scenarios, good background and campaign info. I love the Legends and Lair material as well as the world supplements from AEG. Mystic eye has a winner in there The Hunt, Rise of Evil material. I have a huge collection of D20 at this time.
I guess, in essence, i am trying to determine what D20 is all about, and how to make use of all this material in my own world setting.
I never remembered 2nd edition being like this.